


idiots in love (and their gay knife daughter)

by sniikt



Series: something like home. [3]
Category: John Wick (Movies), The Last of Us
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, M/M, just lots of soft cheesiness here, like lots of fluff, way too much fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-01-03 18:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21184211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sniikt/pseuds/sniikt
Summary: a look into the life of the wick-miller family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! so this fic is just gonna be a collection of one shots about joel and john and ellie’s life. they’re in no particular order and follow no set storyline.

Joel bounces his leg when he’s nervous.

It’s a habit John noticed on their second date (“Not a date if one person doesn’t know it’s a date,” he can hear Joel grouch). It’s a bad habit that John has long ago learned to love, but now he presses his hand to Joel’s knee slightly to stop him.

Joel sighs, and shifts a little in the passenger seat. John can tell he’s trying to shake out the tension in his body, and ease the ache of a day of traveling. “Joel,” he says, gently, tracing a slow circle on Joel’s knee with his thumb. “It will be okay.”

Joel sighs, scrubs at his face, and then slumps deeper into his seat. “What if it’s not? What if we came all this way for fuckin’...” He trails off, glancing out the window, and adjusting his watch on his wrist. 

“Then it will  still be okay,” John says, and Joel gives a wry laugh before gently pulling John’s hand off his knee and intertwining their fingers. He presses a soft kiss to the back of John’s hand, and John feels a surge of luckiness. Joel’s all his—he’s the only one who gets this soft gentleness.

John glances in the rear view mirror, expecting some sort of gagged reaction over Joel’s brief display of affection from Ellie, but she’s dozing in the backseat, with her headphones in. 

Joel leans against the car door and looks out the window, keeping hold of John’s hand.

John feels something like guilt grab his heart briefly—wondering if he pushed Joel too much, if Joel would have decided to do this on his own. 

Joel had mentioned Tommy before, mostly in passing—he’d featured in offhand stories about Joel’s childhood, and in fond stories about Joel’s twenty-first birthday, and a motorcycle trip from years ago. John had only found out about why he was missing from Joel’s life several weeks before their wedding ceremony—that Tommy hadn’t been able to deal with Joel’s blind rage and mission for vengeance after Sarah’s death.

John had only suggested that Joel mend things with Tommy a few times—once before their wedding, and a couple scattered times between then and now. Joel had always visibly bristled at the suggestion, and John had always eased his anxieties with soft kisses and reassurances. The most recent time was different, though. Joel had brought him up fondly several times, and when John brought up mending things again, he had genuinely considered it. 

Which is how they ended up detouring their Yellowstone road trip into Jackson, which is supposedly where Tommy had landed a few years ago. 

It  had  been entirely Joel’s suggestion though—a nervously made comment about how Tommy lives nearby, actually, and maybe they should make a stop. 

“That’s it,” Joel says suddenly, sitting up straighter in his seat, pointing at a nicer looking house at the end of the street. 

John pulls into the driveway.

Joel takes a nervous breath.

“Are you okay?” John asks, and squeezes Joel’s hand.

“I—I don’t know.” He mumbles, staring out the window at the house.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” John says gently—giving him an out. 

Joel doesn’t respond.

“Do you want us to stay in the car?” John asks, and Joel shakes his head suddenly, gripping John’s hand tighter. 

“No,” he says hoarsely. “I just—I need—“

He trails off, but John gets the point, and leans across the center console to give him a gentle kiss. He rubs his thumb over Joel’s cheek, softly, admiring, not for the first time, how handsome his husband is. He presses another gentle kiss to the scar on the bridge of Joel’s nose before he pulls away slightly. “We’re here,” he murmurs reassuringly, and Joel squeezes his hand gratefully. 

* * *

“So,” Ellie says, as they head up the walk. “Does Tommy have kids?”

“I don’t know,” Joel says, shifting his watch and working his jaw in a way that John has learned to associate with his anxious moods.

“Well, is he married?” 

“I don’t know,” Joel says again.

“What do you know?” Ellie asks, shoving her phone into her back pocket and jogging a few steps so she’s walking almost in line with Joel. It’s the kind of smartass question that would normally make John chuckle a little at Joel’s expense. Instead he just catches her eye and shoots her a look that he hopes says ‘drop it’.

She rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anymore—instead shoving her headphones in her back pocket and stifling a yawn.

Joel pauses as they reach the door, hand hesitating over the doorbell. He glances back at John, and for a second John thinks he’s really going to back out.

But he doesn’t. He rings the doorbell and then runs his hands through his hair so it’s standing on end before seeming to realize his mistake and smoothing it back down. 

The door opens to reveal a blonde woman with pulled back hair in a hoodie and jeans. A boy, about five, peaks out from behind to her, clinging to her leg as she rests her hand on his head.

“Can I help you?” She asks, eyeing Joel, and then John, before finally landing on Ellie. 

“I—“ Joel pauses—fumbles with his watch a little. “We’re lookin’ for a Tommy Miller. Must ‘a got the wrong house—“

“Hey, Maria, where’s the—“ A man appears in the doorway, and he pauses suddenly. “Holy shit,” he breathes, and then pushes his way out on to the doorstep to pull Joel into a hug. 

John can hear Joel give a soft relieved breath as he leans into the hug. “Hey baby brother,” he murmurs, gently, melting into the hug the way that’s just entirely  Joel.

The man—Tommy, John assumes—pushes away from the hug, hand on Joel’s shoulder. “You got fuckin’  old .”

Joel wrinkles his nose in the same indignant way he reacts to Ellie’s teasing about his age. “Hey now,” he grouses, shoving Tommy’s shoulder playfully. “‘s gonna happen to you, too.”

“Hey, c’mon in,” Tommy says, glancing over John and Ellie only briefly before gesturing inside. As they step in the door, Tommy picks up the boy—still curiously examining them all. “This is Maria,” he says, bumping into the woman who opened the door gently with his shoulder. “And this little guy with all her good looks is Lucas. Why don’t y’all come in and sit?” 

* * *

Joel introduces the man next to him as John, and the teenage girl as Ellie, as Tommy leads them to the living room to sit—though he notices that Joel leaves out his exact relationship to them both. He doesn’t however, miss the way Joel presses firmly into John’s side as they sink into the couch, or how he tucks a lose piece of hair behind Ellie’s ear before touching her shoulder gently, encouraging her to follow Tommy first. It’s a familiar comfortableness he hadn’t seen in Joel since before Sarah died. In fact, it almost looks something like happiness. Something that looks good on him.

“Dinner’s in the oven if you wanna stick around,” says Maria, after shaking everyone’s hand. 

Joel shifts, looking a little awkward and out of place. Tommy thinks he’s going to decline, but Ellie interrupts before he can. 

“Joel, I’m  starving,”  She gives him a hopeful grin, and the way it’s just a little crooked and childlike reminds Tommy of Sarah a little. It’s no wonder Joel’s got such a soft spot for her.

Maria laughs. “Guess you’re staying.” 

Ellie gives a soft little “yes!” as Joel gives her a soft push on the shoulder. “Better go help out in the kitchen then, since you’re so starvin’.” 

Ellie looks a little less pleased to be banished to the kitchen, but she still follows Maria somewhat cheerfully, especially after Maria mentions sneaking a taste of dessert.

“Looks like you got a real nice life here,” Joel says, watching as Maria and Ellie leave, Lucas following along behind them. 

“Yeah, well,” Tommy says, before pausing, noticing, for the first time, the wedding band on Joel’s finger. “Better than I deserve. Finally got my contractor’s license ‘bout ten years ago ‘n ended up taking some work with Maria’s father on the dam up here. Rest is just history.”

Joel nodded, as Tommy eyed the band on his finger and the matching one on John’s. Willed the conversation to head there. Joel had always erred on the side of caution when it came to disclosing personal details—even before Sarah’s death. But after, Tommy had witnessed the shut down—he was suddenly unwilling to connect with anyone, even Tommy. Just the fact that he was here at all was a huge step up from the man Tommy had left fifteen years ago. Never would he have imagined that man with a family.

But Joel didn’t steer the conversation there. “‘n Lucas?” He questions instead, slight smile on his face. “Pretty sure you always said you weren’t ‘bout to have kids. More ‘a the ‘fun uncle type’, you said.”

Tommy snorts a gentle laugh, partly at the jab, partly because of amazement that Joel would even acknowledge that, because it meant acknowledging Sarah in some small way. “We actually got another one—Emma. She’s not around right now, we just dropped her off at a birthday party up the road. So love just changes a man, I guess.” 

Joel nods, dropping his eyes down to his hands before twisting his ring a few times. “Yeah...yeah. Listen, that’s—“ he pauses, huffing a nervous breath. “That’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you ‘bout. ‘m sorta retired now. ‘n—“ he heasitates again before pressing his hand into John’s, and Tommy doesn’t miss the affectionate smile John gives, or the way he squeezes Joel’s hand gently. “‘n I finally got married—settled down a few years ago. We, uh—we adopted Ellie officially ‘bout a year ago.”

“Joel, I’m really—“ Tommy pauses, at a loss for words. Really what? Happy for him just didn’t seem to do it justice. The Joel he had left behind twenty years ago was a far cry from the Joel in front of him now. He’d been angry, desperate to lash out at anything that even carried the slightest reminder of Sarah or the dad he used to be. Anything, including Tommy. Tommy had left, and truthfully had never expected Joel to be able to pick up the pieces of his life. “That’s really really great. I’m just—really happy for you.”

Joel gives a soft, relieved laugh.

“Wish you woulda called ‘n let me know i was gonna be meetin’ my brother-in-law today though,” Tommy says, attempting to lighten the mood. “Might ‘a cleaned up the house a little. Maybe woulda put on a nice shirt.”

John laughs, easy and light, and so much more relaxed than Joel. It’s easy to see the ways he complements Joel. “Joel talks a lot about you,” he says, voice warm and reassuring. “It’s nice to put a face to the name.”

* * *

Dinner is—well—fun. Joel’s awkward tension fades away, put at ease by Ellie’s smartass jokes and John’s constant, calming presence. Maria and Ellie get along easily and well. Lucas takes to Joel as soon as he brings his collection of toy tractors to the room and Joel tells him all about what it was like to ride them when he worked construction. John fits in well, with an easy sense of humor and laidback attitude. When Joel came out at sixteen, it had been something their parents had mostly ignored—content to pretend that it had never happened. Tommy had always been convinced that’s why they had been so eager to push Joel into marrying Lizzie when she got pregnant with Sarah. Even still, Tommy thinks they would have liked John—his kindness and soft edges that seemed to be able to put everyone at ease.

Dinner comes to an end with Lucas’s face covered in chocolate from his much too large piece of chocolate cake that will definitely keep him wired for the rest of the night. Ellie calls him a chocolate monster and tells him she’s gonna gobble him up, to which he shrieks a giggle and runs into the living room, Ellie chasing after him. Maria grins, and gets up to start clearing away dishes before Tommy stops her with a kiss. 

“Go have fun with the kids,” he says. “I’ll handle dishes.”

John gives Joel a look. 

“‘m gonna help with dishes,” Joel says. “Better go make sure Ellie doesn’t break anything.” 

* * *

“I’m gonna be honest Joel, I never thought I’d see you so happy,” Tommy says, passing Joel a dish to dry.

Joel laughs softly, but he doesn’t meet Tommy’s eye, instead staring at the dish he’s drying a little too intensely. “Yeah, well, guess I spent twenty years thinkin’ I couldn’t be happy.” He clears his throat and sets the dish down before gripping the edge of the counter. “‘n I think I owe you an apology for that. You didn’t deserve... that.  I shoulda realized—well. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Tommy says, feeling a familiar spike of guilt. Joel had been hurting and maybe it was unfair of him to leave, or expect what he had expected from him. “I should of—I dunno—tried harder, I guess.”

Joel gives a huff and shakes his head.

Tommy pauses, watching as Joel runs his hands through his hair and plays with the dish rag to avoid making eye contact. “Hey, um—I have something for you.” Joel glances at him as Tommy dries his hands and motions for him to follow. “In here.” He leads Joel into the garage, taking him over to the far corner before crouching down to pull a worn cardboard box out from under a stack of shelves. “It’s some of Sarah’s things. I took ‘em from the house before it sold. Thought maybe—“ he pauses, unsure of how to continue the sentence. He’d been unsure, even back then, why he’d saved it all. Hope maybe? Hope that Joel would come around and want some pieces of her back? “Well, I think you need to have ‘em.”

He pushes the box toward Joel, and Joel takes it. Pulls out a dusty picture frame and wipes his hand over it. Tommy doesn’t have to look to know what picture he’s looking at. It’s the one of her with he soccer trophy. Joel’s arms around her. Both of them smiling. 

Joel pauses for a long moment before gingerly placing the he picture back on top. “Thank you,” he says, softly, and Tommy nods. 

“‘Course.”

* * *

They return home and life goes back to normal. John places the picture of them all at Yellowstone on the wall, another monument to the family they’ve built and the life they have together. Ellie goes back to school and worrying about her new friend Dina and her budding crush on her. John and Joel go back to normal life. Joel brings the box home from Tommy’s, and John mostly forgets about it because Joel seems to too.

Until one night when he wakes to an empty space in the bed next to him. He reaches for Joel’s warmth, and finds Dog comfortably curled up where his husband should be. Bleary eyed, he shuffles into the kitchen, expecting to find Joel hunching over a cup of coffee like he usually does after nightmares, only to be met with an empty and dark kitchen.

He wipes sleep from his eyes, suddenly confused and a little concerned at Joel’s sudden absence, until he catches the sliver of light coming from underneath the basement door.

He finds Joel sitting on one of the couches down there, with the box he’d brought home from Tommy’s sitting untouched across from him. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” John asks as he walks down the stairs. 

Joel shakes his head.

John joins him on the couch and puts his hand on his knee before kissing his temple gently. 

Joel’s still staring at the box, worrying his watch with one hand. “I want to look through it,” he says finally, softly, as if he’s committing some sort of sin by saying it out loud. 

John nods and rubs Joel’s knee a little. “Do you want me to go?”

Joel pauses, as if considering. “No,” he says finally. “I just—“ he cuts himself off and grabs the box abruptly, pulling it onto his lap. 

He takes a steadying breathe, and then bends back the top to look inside.

He pulls out a recently dusted off picture first, and holds it gently in his hands, fingers tracing the design on the frame. “This was her first soccer tournament,” he says softly. “She was...she was so excited to get her hands on that trophy. Told me about a million times in the week before that game that she was gonna get that trophy.”

He pauses, a soft watery smile on his face, and then hands the picture to John.

It’s the first time he’s ever seen Sarah, and the first time he’s seen Joel looking so young. Sarah’s blonde hair and blue eyes must have belonged to her mother, but her face and smile and spread of freckles are all Joel’s. John smiles and glances at Joel. “She looks like you.” 

Joel laughs. “She would have liked you. She would have liked this.”

Joel gestures vaguely, but John understands what he means. 

A home. A family. Just—something good. 

Happiness.


	2. two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place after the hit but before finding home. warning for a brief but somewhat graphic depiction of injuries.

Joel presses his hand deep in his suit coat pocket, fumbling with the cold metal ring and rubbing the smooth surface of it with his thumb before grasping it in his fist so tightly it hurts. 

He must tighten his other hand too, because John shifts his fingers, gently urging Joel to loosen his grip on John’s hand without saying a word.

“What’s wrong?” John says, softly, pressing into Joel’s side gently.

“Nothin’,” Joel murmurs, giving him a lopsided smile that feels weak, even to himself. 

John’s brow furrows, as if he knows Joel’s lying, and he leans over to press a light kiss to Joel’s lips, thumbing through his hair with his free hand.

Joel smiles again, finding that it comes a little easier this time. “‘m fine. Really.”

Joel’s saved from anymore skeptical or disbelieving looks by the hostess who leads them to their seats.

Joel pulls John’s seat out for him, which earns him a soft laugh.

“What?” He scoffs back, as he sits in his own seat. “‘m a gentleman.”

John grins at him—easy and carefree in a way that makes Joel’s stomach do flips. “I don’t think I said you weren’t.”

Joel pretends to focus on the menu—suddenly feeling like John can see right through him—can see the ring he turns over and over in his suit pocket.

It had just been a lazy morning, spent drinking coffee and reading the news with the dogs at John’s feet, and Joel had gotten the ridiculous urge to go out and buy a ring.

So he did.

It was one of the stupider impulse decisions he had gone through with, really. But truthfully, he was just tired of not being married to John, and the obvious solution to that was to just buy a ring and ask.

His wedding to Lizzie had been a shotgun one, which meant the proposal (if you could even call it that), had been even less thought out. He’d given her a cheap ring—the only thing he could afford—at her house on a Wednesday night, and then held her hair while she threw up because her morning sickness was throwing her for a loop.

He’d always wondered if they would have lasted longer if he’d worked on the proposal a little more.

He couldn’t bear to make the same mistake with John.

Which is why he’d carried the ring around for weeks before finally making dinner reservations.

The server came back around—took their orders before pouring them each a glass of champagne.

This was Joel’s moment.

And he couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t right. Not now. Not yet. He couldn’t fuck this up this time—couldn’t lose John to some stupid ass proposal he didn’t do right.

Instead, he shoved the ring deeper in his pocket, swallowed the lump in his throat down with a sip of champagne, and offered John a soft smile.

* * *

Three weeks later, Joel has a cut across his forehead so deep it shows bone, along with a deeply split lip, a probably rebroken nose, and a black eye that will inevitably swell shut later.

Fuck brass knuckles.

One of John’s hands is tangled in Joel’s hair, pushing aside the half bloodied strands that hang over his forehead so he can stitch up the deep gash in Joel’s forehead.

John worries his lip in the edge of his mouth as he pulls through another stitch, wincing as Joel hisses a soft exhale of pain. “Sorry,” he mumbles, but when Joel catches a glimpse of the worry and pain in John’s eyes, Joel suddenly feels like he should be the one apologizing.

“John, I—“

John stops him, shaking his head. “You need to be careful. Not take more than one hit from brass knuckles if you can help it.”

Joel scoffs softly, which makes John’s brow furrow.

“I’m serious, Joel. Your face is a fucking mess. And you shouldn’t fuck around with head wounds—this one was bleeding like hell—“

Maybe it’s because Joel’s just a little tipsy from the whiskey John gave him for the pain, or maybe it’s because the adrenaline is still pumping, or maybe it’s because he’s alive, and John’s alive, and John just looks so cute with his brow furrowed like that, chewing Joel out.

Whatever it is, Joel certainly wasn’t planning it.

“Marry me,” he says, feeling dopey and tired and fuck, maybe it was the whiskey.

“What?” John stops, hand hovering over Joel’s stitches, letting his other hand drop out of Joel’s hair and onto his knee.

It definitely wasn’t supposed to happen like this, the still functioning part of Joel’s brain tries to say, but the rest of him pulls the ring out of his pocket and offers it to John with shakey fingers.

“Marry me,” he says again, because he might as well, he’s committed now, and he wants to marry John so bad it hurts. 

John just stares, confusion replacing the worry in his eyes, and after a few beats, Joel begins to realize that maybe he fucked up after all, maybe John didn’t want to remarry after Helen, maybe he ruined it all again.

“‘s that a no?” he says hoarsely, swallowing hard, forcing back tears that threaten behind his eyes. 

“Joel,” John says, so softly, almost hurt, and Joel has to reach up to scrub away at the tears that finally start to fall. “Joel,” he says again, and this time he reaches up to rub a tear away from Joel’s cheek with his thumb. “Of course I want to marry you.”

Joel chokes on any sort of response, and John saves him with a gentle, insistent kiss that Joel melts into.

When John finally, slowly, pulls away, he reaches for the hand Joel’s still clutching the ring in. “C’mere,” he says gently, and helps Joel slide the ring on, which is probably good, since Joel’s hands won’t stop shaking.

John pulls Joel closer, and Joel buries his face in John’s shoulder, clinging to his shirt like it’s a lifeline. 

“I love you,” says John after a beat. “But I’m pretty sure I’m the one that’s supposed to be crying since, you know, I just got proposed to.”

Joel laughs shakily. “Asshole.”

He doesn’t mean it.


	3. three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Under the mistletoe, watching the fire glow, and telling me ‘I love you’.”

Joel shrugs his shoulders forward as he presses his hands deep in his pockets and pushes his face as far into his coat as he can manage before forcing himself out of his truck and down the drive toward the mailbox.

Fuck, he was never getting used to east coast cold.

Snowflakes flit underneath his hood, hitting his cheeks and sticking to the few strands of visible hair that hang over his forehead, despite his best efforts to shield himself. He fumbles to open the mailbox and pull out the few letters worth of junk mail inside.

On the walk up to the door, he absent mindedly rifled through the envelopes and wonders if John would agree that they should just go into hibernation in the winters. No more winter jobs. They were always cold and wet and long, anyway.

He opens the door and throws the letters off to the table in the entry way, shucking off his damp jacket and work boots into the coat closet. 

He shuffles down the hallway in his socks that he’s grateful are still semi-warm, and not damp. As he rounds the corner into the living room, he can hear John, rummaging through some bags and singing softly under his breath. 

Joel pauses in the entry way to the room, leaning against the wall. John’s back is to him, and he’s digging through shopping bags that are set out along the sofa. There’s a small, but alive looking pine tree in the corner of the room. John’s humming something that sounds vaguely like  _I’ll Be Home For Christmas_,  which makes Joel smile, his heart tugging gently. 

“Hey,” Joel says softly, almost reverently, feeling, as he so often does around John, that he’s just lucky to be here—to know John at all, much less love him and be loved by him.

John turns, that soft, genuine, gentle smile spreading across his face as he sees Joel. “You’re home,” he says, and Joel nods, closing the gap between them so he can press a warm kiss to John’s lips, smiling into it.

When he pulls away he tucks some of John’s hair away from his face and behind his ear. “You got a Christmas tree?”

“It  _ is  _ Christmas,” John says, giving him that grin that’s only slightly smug and shit-eating, in a way that makes him look frustratingly adorable.

Joel snorts softly, running a finger over some of the ornaments John’s unpacked and layed out across the couch. Truthfully, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d really celebrated Christmas. It had been a tradition to get shit-faced on some cheap whiskey in whatever slum they were staying in when he had been working with Tess, but that didn’t really count. All he could really remember was Sarah’s last Christmas, even though there were probably others, after that. When he still had Tommy, maybe.

John comes up behind him, wrapping his arms gently around his waist. “It’s just a tree. Nothing else,” he mumbles against Joel’s neck before placing a kiss there, capable of knowing Joel’s anxieties and assuaging them without Joel saying a word.

Joel shakes his head ever so slightly, leaning back into John. “‘s fine. Really. Just didn’t think we were gonna do anything to celebrate is all.” He tangles one of his hands with John’s before leaning his head to the side slightly so it bumps against John’s softly. “It  _ is _ Christmas. Our first one. We should do somethin’.”

* * *

Christmas comes to a living room bathed in swathes of soft yellow light from the Christmas tree and the flicker of the dying fire in the fireplace. Christmas music plays lightly in the background from a distant speaker.

John stretches out across the couch, Joel sprawled nearly on top of him, legs tangled lazily with his as he presses kisses to John’s neck occasionally, content with sleepy affection for now. 

Wrapping paper scatters across the floor, with the unwrapped presents sitting on the coffee table next to the two, now lukewarm, half empty coffee cups. 

Joel gives a mumbled “Merry Christmas” into John’s neck, which John returns with a sleepy smile and a halfhearted “Merry Christmas” whispered into Joel’s hair.

In the morning, Joel will complain of a back ache from sleeping on the couch, and John will slowly, begrudgingly, take down the tree. 

But for now, it’s enough to be here. Together. On Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this is by far the most self indulgent and cheesy thing i’ve written but whateves. enjoy 500 words of no plot just fluff.


	4. four.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by this cute art: https://twitter.com/vvenkman/status/1208668274315202560?s=21. takes place five years after finding home, so ellie is the same age as she is in pt2 :)

Joel frowns at himself in the mirror, tugging at the hem of his sweater that scratches uncomfortably against his skin before adjusting the reindeer horns with bells on them that pinch at his head. 

John’s ugly Christmas sweater parties were getting out of hand.

Not that Joel was about to tell John that. They’d become tradition about five years ago, shortly after they’d adopted Ellie. John had said it would bolster their reputation as good dads and generally good neighbors but Joel knew some part of him just missed interacting with everyone. He’d had a good relationship with all the neighbors before Helen died, and he’d just wanted that back.

Out of the blue, Joel feels arms wrapped around his torso and a face buried in his back.

“Hey kiddo,” he says, and he can feel Ellie smile into his back before pulling away to look over his shoulder. 

“Nice horns,” she says, with a knowing grin that makes Joel roll his eyes. 

“‘m tellin’ John not to get the dollar store horns next year. Squeezin’ my fuckin’ brains out.”

Ellie laughs and Joel can’t help but smile at her in the mirror. She’s grown up a lot from the fiery fourteen year old Marlene had ushered into his living room. She’d moved into the city in August to go to school, had rented an apartment with Dina, and gotten a job at some stables there. Letting her go and live her life in a city that Joel intimately knew the underbelly of had to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

But she was home, safe and happy, and ready for Christmas.

“Shouldn’t you be downstairs with Dina?” He asks, as Ellie releases him from her hug. 

Ellie shrugs. “Dad told me to come get you. Literally everyone’s there except you.”

“Look ridiculous,” Joel grumbles under his breath.

Ellie tugs on his hand with a smile. “So does everyone else. It’s awesome.”

* * *

They collapse when it’s late and dark outside. Joel sinks into the comfy couch cushions, where John rests his head on Joel’s shoulder, while Joel plays with John’s hair absentmindedly. Ellie sits on the floor against the couch, Dina next to her, their hands clasped between them.

“Jeez,” Ellie says finally, with an over exaggerated yawn, gently bumping Dina’s head with her own. “Think I ate like a million sugar cookies.”

Dina gives her own over exaggerated yawn to match Ellie’s. “Me too. They were soooo good, Mr. Miller.”

“Joel,” he corrects, not for the first time, and probably not for the last. Then, fighting a yawn himself, mumbles a thank you. He can feel John smiling softly at him—too aware that Joel had always hated Mr. Miller.

“Well,” Ellie says, pushing herself up, and tugging on Dina’s hand to bring her along. “I think we should go to bed.”

Ellie manages a half hug to both Joel and John without forcing either of them to move much, before tugging Dina up the stairs to her old bedroom, leaving Joel and John on the couch, alone, in the dim light of the Christmas tree. 

“We should go to bed too,” John says finally, softly.

“‘s too far,” Joel says lazily, resting his head against John’s.

John gives a gentle snort. “It’s just upstairs.”

“Too far,” Joel repeats, and this time John doesn’t argue. 

They sit in a comfortable silence, Joel stroking John’s hair while John traces incomprehensible shapes on Joel’s leg. 

“If you fall asleep on the couch you’ll spend the next three days complaining about your back,” John says finally, forcing his head off Joel’s shoulder, pressing a kiss to Joel’s cheek as he rises. “C’mon. Bedtime.”

“Wouldn’t complain that much,” Joel grumbles, allowing himself to be pulled up by John nonetheless.

John leads him up the stairs, stopping at the top to position Joel under the mistletoe.

Joel gives a sleepy laugh as John wraps an arm around Joel’s waist, pulling him flush against John’s body. John sways a little, as if dancing to music only he can hear. 

“I love you,” he says, voice reverent, almost a whisper, lips almost touching Joel’s. The way John looks at him—devoted, eyes sparkly and gentle, almost disbelieving—won’t ever fail to make butterflies rise in the pit of Joel’s stomach. 

Joel doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he just closes the gap between their lips, tangling the fingers from one hand in John’s hair as he does. 

When Joel eventually pulls away, he hovers close to John, lips almost still touching, reluctant now to give up kissing John for sleep. 

John smiles, softly. “Merry Christmas,” he says, and then closes the gap between them once more. 


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> takes place kind of in the middle of the hit. before their first kiss but after they’ve met. on one of the odd jobs they take together after they’ve met.
> 
> warnings: canon typical violence depictions, slightest self harm ideation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also ps if you want the full experience u can listen to finally // beautiful stranger by halsey bc that’s what i listened to on repeat while i wrote this for something reason? but anyway here’s some nice lyrics that fit:  

> 
> “and i say i’m only playing, but the truth is this: that i’ve never seen a mouth that i would kill to kiss.”

Joel shifts his shoulder under the dull ache of his duffle bag strap, thumbing absentmindedly at the seam of it, as he runs through his mental list of weapons and ammo settled at the bottom of the bag, underneath a few sets of clothes. He pushes against the glass door of the Continental, and it swings open soundlessly.

The Continental has become almost too familiar in recent months with Joel’s time almost equally divided between New York and anywhere else. Joel doesn’t examine all the reasons he has to come to New York so often, or why it’s always so hard to leave when the time comes—those are all problems to be shoved into the deep, dark, unfeeling corners of his heart that had grown numb years ago. 

Nonetheless, Joel takes a moment to let the quiet chatter of the lobby wash over him, a feeling like falling into your bed after a long trip. No one really spares him a glance anymore—all the Continental’s usuals used to his comings and goings by now—no longer a newcomer as he was just a few months ago. Charon glances up from helping someone at the front desk, and Joel could swear he offers a small smile before returning to his work. 

It makes Joel bristle, just a little—Charon’s smiles always seem just a little too knowing, like he’s gathered something from Joel while Joel doesn’t even know what it is. 

Joel fidgets with his watch, glancing down at it as if the time would have shifted from the position it’s always been stuck at: 2:15.

He swallows hard and forces himself up to the front desk.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Miller,” Charon says, as Joel approaches, and Joel just nods. “Are you going to be needing a room?”

Joel nods again. “For at least a week. Maybe more.” 

As Charon keys him into the system, Joel glances over the lobby, looking for John. It’s rare that John wasn’t waiting for him at the Continental when he arrived, but it wasn’t unheard of either. Especially since Joel’s last job had ended quickly and he’d gotten here fast than he’d predicted to John. He probably wouldn’t see him for a few days—not until John could start the job, anyway.

He tries to pretend the thought of days here without John doesn’t twist his stomach into knots.

“’ve you seen Wick?” Joel says finally, as Charon reaches down to find Joel’s key. He can practically hear John correcting him, like he does every time Joel calls him Wick. But something just feels  wrong  about using John’s name with anyone but John. Like saying the word when he can’t see John’s soft smile at just the sound of his name from Joel is sacrilege.

Charon’s smiling at him with  that  smile again, and it forces Joel to swallow the butterflies in his chest and avert his gaze, pretending to search for gold coins to pay with in his duffle bag. “He was here earlier, but left on some job or another. That was quite a while ago though, I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

Joel wants to retort that he doesn’t care—feeling found out, which is ridiculous—John’s his business partner, and maybe even friend. He’s allowed to ask about him. Instead he just pushes several coins onto the desk and takes the key from Charon with a mumbled thanks.

* * *

Joel wakes up to what he thinks is knocking at his door. He rolls over, shifting heavy covers off of himself, trying to decide if he’d dreamed the pounding, or if someone was really at his door. With the pounding in his head from being woken from his first real night’s sleep in almost a week, he’s almost certain it’s the former.

Then the pounding comes again.

It’s weak but there—definitely not imagined. Joel forces himself up, fishing under the pillow for his pistol, shoving it in the waistband of his sweatpants unceremoniously before stumbling toward the door.

He pulls it open and John all but tumbles into the room. Joel moves forward to catch him, just as John manages to catch himself on the doorframe before losing his balance altogether. Joel’s shoulder pressing into him must jostle some injury though, because John gives off a sound that’s stuck somewhere between a hiss and a strangled whine.

“Sorry,” John mumbles, almost slurred, and Joel would laugh from the ridiculousness of that if he could breathe around the anxiety clawing it’s way into his throat.

“’s okay,” Joel says finally, still feeling the heavy weight on his chest. “Can you walk?”

John nods and Joel thinks he tries to breathe a yes, but it’s caught between his already deep and unsteady breaths.

Joel helps him to the bed anyway, trying to adjust his positioning so it doesn’t dig into anything more than it needs to, which is honestly some sort of feat. John’s practically drenched in blood—Joel’s not sure how much of it’s his, but with the deep gashes across his chest and the various bullet wounds in his shoulders and abdomen, he wouldn’t be surprised if all of it belonged to him.

John does manage to at least sit on the edge of the bed—somewhat wobbly, and still breathing heavily, but at least safe from falling onto the floor.

“Fuck John,” breathes Joel, softly, because it’s all he can manage. Fear seems to have turned the blood in his veins cold, and the room is far too hot, and he can’t seem to catch his breath because it feels like there’s a slab of iron sitting right on his lungs. “We gotta get you down to the doctor.”

Joel’s not sure how he’s going to manage that—getting John to the bed was hard enough—how he got himself up to the room in the first place is beyond Joel. 

“No,” says John finally, with a shake of his head, taking a deep shaky breath. “Here’s fine. Want—“ He takes another shaky inhale. “Here.”

Joel knows he should take John to the doctor. That the sheer amount of blood John’s lost is a danger on it’s own, not to mention how hard breathing seems to be for him, or how the haze he seems to be pushing through seems indicative of a concussion.

But when John looks at him like  that— tired and dopey, but like he feels safe and warm finally, a look a little too much like a four letter word that Joel tries not to let cross his mind too much these days—well, who is Joel to deny him?

“Okay,” Joel says, fear somehow washed away by the simple expression of faith in John’s eyes. He pulls his first aid kit out of his bag, kneeling on the floor in front of John. “Still gotta get all this stitched up, though.”

John nods, and he’s smiling at Joel, which makes Joel feel a little like he’s free falling off a cliff.

With shaky hands, he pulls the first stitch through.

They make it through the first slash across John’s chest without more than a few winces or hisses of discomfort, but the next gash—a huge one that cuts across John’s torso, from his right shoulder almost to his left hip, is much more difficult. Cleaning it draws strangled groans from John as he knots his fingers into the blankets beneath him. The first stitch pulls a whine from him that he attempts to bite down on, instead just serving to making it sound even more strangled and pained. 

Joel pauses, hands too shaky with rage to continue. A breathless kind of anger courses through him, a kind of anger he hadn’t felt since he began this life, since he choked the life from Sarah’s killers with his bare hands, in some sort of desperation to kill the firey pain inside him.

He wanted to destroy whoever had done this to John. To slit their throats and watch them gurgle their last breathes. To return some small measure of the pain that they had caused to John.

(An even more selfish part of him longed for the ache that a fight would mean for his own body—a sort of punishment for not being there for John, for not having his back when it really mattered.)

Instead, he reaches a hand up for John’s face, thumb brushing along a busted open bruise on John’s cheekbone. John lets himself melt into the touch, face pressing more firmly into Joel’s hand, and he’s looking at Joel so adoringly that it hurts.

Joel wonders if he’d look at him the same way if he knew the violence that seemed to run through his veins. He didn’t deserve this—he knows that. But it doesn’t stop him from glancing toward John’s lips, a split running through the top one, and Joel wants nothing more than to ease the sting of it with a kiss. Could if he wanted to—John’s so close, his lips so close to Joel’s—

Joel pulls away with a shaky breath, hands returning to John’s chest.

* * *

It feels like days later that Joel finishes cleaning John up—the final stitch pulled through, everything bandaged, the dried blood wiped from his skin—but it’s probably only an hour or two. John’s dozing toward the end, an adrenaline crash and his blood loss finally hitting him, but as Joel pulls away to tuck the kit of bandages back into his bag John’s eyes suddenly flutter open. 

“You should sleep,” Joel says softly, and John nods in wordless agreement, lying back into the pillows with a soft hiss of pain as aching muscles and stitched up skin shift with the movement. Joel stands, feeling his own muscles protest at the sudden change in position. “I’ll take the couch,” he says, and John shakes his head, eyes opening again.

“No,” he says, and Joel can hear the pure exhaustion in his voice as he stifles a yawn. John shifts some more, until he’s only taking up half the bed, and he halfheartedly pats the space next to him with his hand. “Stay here.”

Joel feels a different kind of nervousness form in the pit of his stomach—the good kind—the kind that’s all butterflies and lightness, a kind of anxiety that he’s come to associate with John. 

He should just take the couch.

But who is he to deny John anything?

Gingerly, he curls up into the space next to John, careful not to jostle him more than necessary. John gives a content kind of sigh, pressing himself into Joel comfortably before his breathing evens into a sleepy rhythm.

Joel wills the anxiety away—he can over examine this in the morning, explain it away, write it off as John’s blood loss. For now, it’s just enough to be with John.


	6. six.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is loosely inspired by the fic once upon a derp by raffinit. i read it and couldn’t help but write a little au-ish thing based on the concept of john finding a tiny ellie. enjoy :)

John had gotten to know the street kids that hung around the Continental pretty well. Over the years he’d grown to almost unconsciously keep an eye out for them—he’d pay them for info, and subtly take care of anyone that heckled them too much. 

It was the least he could do—provide them with something like the sort of adult he’d wished he’d had as a kid.

Most of the kids were older: young teens, street smart and jaded, who would end up training to join the ranks of the underworld in some way or another soon. 

That’s why one in particular stuck in his mind—a little girl with messy auburn hair tucked behind her ears, in a hoodie that was far too big for her. She couldn’t have been more than five, but she’d been with two older boys and a girl, darting into a warehouse. She’d slid into the vent and opened the door a few seconds later for her older friends outside.

Then someone shot John and he’d lost sight of them all. 

Ever since, he’s been keeping an eye out for her. Glancing over the kids that gather in the alleys near the Continental, looking for a flash of tangled red hair among the older, taller kids.

* * *

He finally finds her on a rainy night, as he limps back to the Continental—sore, but only a little worse for wear. He passes an alley opening just as a trash can tips and rolls, spilling out the little girl, shivering, soaked, and stifling sobs.

“Hey,” he says, taking a few steps into the alley and holding his hands to her.

Her head snaps up to him, looking half terrified—not that John can blame her—he’s dressed in an all black suit, probably stained with blood, and with various cuts and bruises across his exposed skin. 

“Hey,” he says again, gently, crouching a few feet away and trying to look as non threatening as possible. “What’s your name, hon?”

She eyes him, tugging her too big hoodie tighter around her and pulling on one of her backpack straps. “Ellie,” she says finally, giving a hiccuped sobbing breath. 

“Hey Ellie,” he says, taking the tiniest step forward, still crouched. “I’m John.”

Ellie’s still eying him warily, her tiny hands balled in fists under her hoodie sleeves that mostly shield her hands from John’s view. “What do you want?” She asks—voice small and still watery with tears. 

John’s heart tugs, feeling tight and choked. She was too little to be out here alone, and way too little to equate a little kindness from adults to being taken advantage of. He offers his hand to her. “I don’t want anything,” he says, surprised a little at how quiet his own voice comes out. “It’s just cold out here. How about we go inside and get something to eat?” 

She’s still obviously suspicious, but the promise of warmth outweighs any of her still lingering fear of him. She takes his hand, and John offers her a smile before picking her up and pulling her inside his suit coat a little, trying to offer up his own body heat.

* * *

Ellie’s stifled sobs subside as John warms her up with a bath and one of Joel’s sweaters that she drowns in. She still sniffles occasionally—from a cold or sadness, John doesn’t know. She sits on the bed next to John, knees pulled up to her chest beneath Joel’s sweater, nibbling on the corner of a grilled cheese sandwich and eyeing the bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup as if unsure what it is.

John’s combed her hair gently, smoothing out the tangles before pulling it into a loose ponytail to keep it out of her face as she eats. He tucks a loose piece of hair behind her ear gently, and as she glances up at him with big green eyes he has to suppress the urge to kiss the top of her head.

Joel was going to fucking kill him.

They’d separated to take two different hits on two opposite ends of the city, and the last thing Joel would be expecting to see when he got home was a little girl tucked in their bed and wearing his sweater.

John knew a little about Sarah—it was hard to know everything when Joel’s voice broke everytime someone mentioned her name and had to fight to breathe through a panic attack. He knew enough, though. Enough to know that broaching the topic of adopting would be too much. 

But what the fuck was he supposed to do? He couldn’t leave a tiny girl in the rain alone. (He wouldn’t think too much about the time when he was a five year old boy, cowering in an alley for a little shelter from the rain.)

John’s snapped back to reality as Ellie’s head nods wearily and she nearly drops her sandwich. He catches it before she does, and her eyes snap open, obviously confused about her surroundings for a second before remembering. 

“Why don’t I take this and you can go to bed?” John says, gently removing the tray of food from the bed before pulling the covers back a little.

Ellie gives a yawn that she tries to stifle. “Don’t need help,” she says, but between her sniffling and voice still thick with a yawn, it’s not very convincing. 

“I know,” John says. “But I think you need to sleep anyway.” 

Ellie doesn’t argue—too tired, John guesses. Instead she curls into a tight tiny ball under the covers, balling her fists in the sleeves of Joel’s sweatshirt and letting John stroke her hair as she dozes off.

* * *

John’s reading when Joel gets back. He’s drenched, hair stuck to his forehead, and he shakes a little as he opens the door, reminding John a little of a wet dog shaking the water out of his fur.

“Hey,” Joel says, closing the door quietly behind him before peeling out of the soaked bulletproof suit coat John had started making him wear when they started doing jobs together. “‘s rainin’ cats and dogs out.”

John smiles, the relief of seeing Joel back and unscathed dwarfing the anxiety of trying to explain to him why there’s a tiny girl tucked under the covers in their bed. “How’d it go?” John says, selfishly putting off telling Joel about Ellie for a second, just to bask in the soft relief of being alive and together for another night. 

“Like shit,” Joel says, kicking off his shoes. “So nothin’ new. How did yours—“ Joel pauses suddenly, stopping himself before he can sit on the bed, noticing the lump below the covers before glancing at John quizzically. “What’s this?” he says finally.

With usual, terrible timing, Ellie shifts, mumbling something sleepily, peeking above the blankets to make eye contact with Joel. Joel seems to freeze in place, while Ellie shrinks back into the blankets, away from Joel and towards John.

John smooths her hair down gently, helping her tug the blankets tighter around her, and nods off toward the bathroom before climbing off the bed and following Joel to the far end of the room, and into the bathroom.

It’s not the ideal place to have an important conversation, but it works. Joel heaves a giant sigh, bracing both hands against the counter and staring into the sink like he might throw up, then looks up, to look at John in the mirror. “What’re you doing?” He says finally, and truthfully it’s softer than John expected. There’s still the edge in his voice—a hardness that John learned long ago isn’t anger, but rather a shell to contain Joel’s anxieties. 

“You said it, Joel,” John says finally, trying to find the words to explain why he has to do this. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there. I couldn’t leave her.”

Joel scrubs at his face tiredly and turns around to lean on the counter and look at Joel. “John, she’s a street kid. ‘s not her first storm ‘n it’s certainly not gonna be her last.”

“She was freezing,” John says after a long pause, aware that it’s not much of an argument, but his argument starts and ends with, “I used to be that kid” and “I wish someone had taken care of me”, and those feelings are a little too raw to speak out loud just yet. 

“If you wanted to help you could ‘a turned her over to someone. Give ‘er to the Director or somethin’.”

John gives an incredulous laugh, shaking his head briefly. “Joel, she’s five.” 

Joel won’t look him in the eye anymore, and John can tell some mixture of grief and guilt is eating him alive—the same grief that makes him stare at the floor and tug at his watch when he sees a dad and his daughter joking in the grocery store, combined with the guilt of knowing exactly what John saw in Ellie when he brought her back to the room.

“I’m not asking for you to have anything to do with it,” John says finally, softly. “Just let her stay the night. Please.”

When Joel finally meets his eyes, there’s a pain there that feels like it pierced into John’s own heart. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but only a soft breath comes out. John reaches for his hand, feeling his heart flutter at the warmth and familiarity of getting to hold Joel’s hand within his own. 

“Fine,” Joel says, voice weak. “Okay. I just—“ He trails off but John gets it and tugs him in for a hug. 

“I know. Come on, it’s time for bed.”

* * *

Joel sleeps on the couch. It hurts John’s heart a little—he knows Joel will hardly sleep, and trying to sleep with him just feet away, feels wrong, somehow. Joel tells him it’s better this way, that Ellie needs someone to keep her warm, and there’s not enough room for all of them on the bed anyway. It’s a lie, but John leaves it alone. He’s not sure Joel would sleep any better with Ellie tucked between the two of them anyway. 

So John dozes on and off, listening to Ellie’s tiny sniffles and Joel’s tossing and turning when he’s awake, and wonders if they could ever make a family out of this.

* * *

They bring Ellie home.

John manages to coax out a little information about her—that she’s never had a mommy and daddy, just the nice people in shelters sometimes, but she didn’t think they really counted as mommies or daddies. She tells him the kids on the street are her friends—at least she thinks so. Do friends like you because you’re little and can get in lots of places? If so, they’re her friends.

Joel seems less than thrilled about their temporary living arrangements, but he doesn’t protest anymore. Instead he lets Ellie take another one of his sweatshirts, and braids her hair into two neat pigtail braids after seeing John struggle with it.

John reassures him that it’s only temporary—just until they find someone who can take her, which Joel just gives a half hearted grunt in reply to.

When they pull into the garage of the house, Ellie is asleep in the backseat.

She’d been amazed to be in a car for the first time—she’d never been in one before, and she thought they’d be much louder, and she’s glad they’re not any smaller because then they’d all be crushed—and she’d been just as amazed to see the city thin out into suburbs and even the occasional patch of farmland (she mooed loudly, repeatedly, as they passed by a heard of cows).

John wakes her—gently, he’d thought—but she still startles awake, wide eyed at new surroundings before focusing in on John.

“Where ‘r we?” she mumbles, stifling a yawn and stretching her arms out—tiny hands still balled in Joel’s sweater sleeves.

“We’re home,” John says, reaching his arms out to pick her up, which she gladly accepts (in the space of less than twelve hours, John had learned Ellie very much liked to be held). 

“Home?” Ellie asks quietly, looking around the large garage, and then toward Joel who is opening the door, waiting for John to bring Ellie in.

John’s heart tugs are the uncertainty in her voice, and he smoothes down her hair gently to channel the sudden nervous energy inside him into something else. “Home,” he repeats.

* * *

Ellie insists on being let down as soon as she sees the dogs. 

Some long forgotten and hidden dad instinct within Joel has his heart jumping in his throat—the pitbull is nearly as big as her, and so clearly excited to have a visitor—

But the dogs are gentle, giving only snuffles and kisses that make Ellie giggle uncontrollably as she tries to tell them about her doggy friends in the city that she would sleep with because they were warm, and would share food with when she had some extra.

Joel tries not to think about the sadness and anger that fills his chest when she talks about that.

He doesn’t care. Shouldn’t care. She’s just another person passing through his life—here for a moment before she moves to something better than either him or the streets could offer her.

He’s having a harder and harder time believing that.

Especially as John takes Ellie’s tiny hand in his own and leads her through the house, showing her everything. He shows her the bedroom, where she runs for the bed, and jumps on it in a way Joel can’t bring himself to chastise her for. She’s amazed at their big shower (it’s like it’s raining inside!). She runs around and around and around in the backyard with the dogs (and tries to climb a tree, to which Joel feels that oh so familiar anxiety of being a parent, and has to tell her trees aren’t for climbing). She shies away from the pool nervously, pressing into John’s side and clinging to his hand as she tells him she can’t swim (to which John reassures her that she can learn). Her eyes grow wide at the kitchen—and as Joel makes her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (and hopes she doesn’t have any food allergies), she downs every snack John places in front of her to keep her busy—and still inhales the sandwich when it’s done. (This is more food than she’s ever seen, she tells them, and Joel’s chest aches painfully at that.)

* * *

And late that night, when John tucks her into bed, Joel behind him, anxiety bubbling in his chest and his broken watch burning into the skin of his wrist, Ellie asks “Am I gonna live here?” And then, after a pause, asks “Are you my daddies now?”

Joel feels every parently instinct he’s ever had and buried, or just outright forgotten, rise to the surface, and he presses a gentle kiss to her forehead with a murmured “of course”.

Because they can work with this. They can make a family out of this.


End file.
